Evan Lake (Nicolas Cage) is a highly decorated veteran Central Intelligence Agency agent and Intelligence Star recipient reduced to a desk job at Langley with his protege and close friend Milton "Milt" Schultz (Anton Yelchin). Twenty-two years ago during an op in Africa, Lake was captured by terrorist Muhammad Banir (Alexander Karim) and tortured by having his head repeatedly bashed and having his ear mutilated. During the extraction and ensuing explosion, Banir went missing and was presumed dead, although Lake never believed it and has obsessively tried to find Banir ever since. As a result of the trauma he sustained under torture, Lake is now suffering from early stage frontal temporal dementia, and his boss considers him a liability to the agency.